Medicine locker



Aug. 21, 1956 v. GOODWIN, JR 2,759,782

MEDICINE LOCKER Filed Feb. 18, 1953 Fl 1. e3

:VERNON Goovwm, JR.

INVENTOR.

B HTTORHEY I United States Patent MEDICINE LOCKER Vernon Goodwin, Jr., Germantown, Pa., assignor to David L. Evans, Port Washington, N. Y

Application February 18, 1953, Serial No. 337,460

13 Claims. (Cl. 312--291) This invention relates to a locker for medicine. More specifically, it relates to a locker which is intended to receive poisonous or otherwise dangerous medicines and which cannot be readily opened.

It is an object of the invention to provide a medicine locker which cannot be easily opened except by the use of two hands.

A further object is to provide a locker which has catch operating tabs arranged to render awkward the manipulation of the tabs so that deliberate and knowing manipulation is required to open the cabinet.

Yet another object of the invention is to provide spring means for holding the door open.

Still another object is to provide a locker which can be mounted in the usual medicine cabinet.

A further object of the spring opened door is to prevent closure of the medicine cabinet door until the locker door is closed.

It is another object to provide a locker which will prevent poisons or dangerous drugs from being misused by children and to prevent accidental misuse of such materials by adults.

These and other objects will become apparent from a study of this specification and the drawings which are attached hereto, made a part hereof and in which:

Figure 1 is a front elevation of the locker.

Figure 2 is a sectional view of the locker taken substantially on line 2-2 of Figure 1 showing the latching mechanism.

Figure 3 is an elevation of the locker in the opened condition showing the spring and latching mechanisms.

Figure 4 is an elevation of a medicine cabinet with the locker mounted in it.

Figure 5 is a sectional view taken substantially on line 5-5 of Figure 3 showing one of the latch operating tabs.

Referring first to Figures 2 and 4, the numeral 1 rep resents the usual medicine cabinet which has a hinged door 3 and shelves 5.

The locker body 7 is preferably a box of five sides which is closed by a door or closure 9 which is hinged to one edge of the body by the loop hinges 11 which enter slots 12 formed in one edge of thebox.

A leaf spring 13 is fixed to the door 9 and extends substantially parallel with the plane of the door, into the box. The spring is bowed at 14 where it extends over the center hinge 11.

The one end of the spring is anchored to the door by the shouldered rivet 15. Two latch levers 17 and 19 are pivotally mounted on the shoulder portion of the rivet.

Latch levers 17 and 19 have their free ends bent outwardly from the plane of the door at 21 and 23 and each is notched at 25 and 27 respectively, forming latches to engage stops 29, 31 which are formed by punching up portions of the walls of the box.

A guide strip 33 is fixed to the door by rivets 35. The ends 37, 39 of the strip extend beyond the rivets and are offset from the door so as to overlie the portions of the 2,759,782 Patented Aug. 21, 1956 latch levers just adjacent the bent latch ends thereof so as to guide and support the latches.

The central portion 41 of the strip is also offset from the door to provide a retaining chamber 43 for the coil spring 45.

The free ends 47, 49 of the spring are confined under tongues 51, 53 which are punched up from the latches 17 and 19 respectively.

The door has openings 55 and 57 formed therein and latch operating tabs 59, 61 are bent up from the latches 17, 19 respectively and extend through the openings to the exterior of the closure as shown, particularly in Figure 5. The tabs and openings serve to limit the motion of the latch levers under action of spring 45.

It will be seen from Figure 3 that the door is large enough to cover the opening of the case so that the door cannot be pressed into the box. Flutes 63 are provided about the edges of the box, other than the hinged edge, to hold the body 7 far enough away from an adjacent surface to permit the door to close without scraping such surface.

The locker may be fastened to the back wall of the medicine cabinet by means of screws 65 which enter prepunched holes 67 formed in the rear wall of the box.

Operation It will be seen that since the stops 29, 31 are inclined away from the edge of the box, it is necessary merely to close the door and the latches will be automatically cammed up by the stops and snapped into latching position behind them by the spring 45.

The latch lever 17 is urged in a clockwise direction by the spring while latch lever 19 is urged in a counterclockwise direction.

To release the latches to open the door, it is necessary to urge the tab 59 to the right, Figure l as shown by arrow A and the tab 61 upwardly as indicated by arrow B. The directions of motion of the two tabs thus lie at degrees and while they may be actuated by the finger and thumb of one hand, the resultant of the pressure of the fingers is away from the hinges 11 so that the door will not open. Thus, the assistance of the second hand is required to open the door.

The tabs are purposely made short so that it is not possible to pull the door open by means of the tabs.

Thus it will be seen that a conscious and studied eifort must be made to open the door which is not even then an easy task since the spring 45 is relatively stout. These factors combine to defeat the efforts of children to open the locker and prevent sleepy or thoughtless adults from opening the locker in an automatic manner.

Further, the spring 13 holds the door open so that the door on the medicine cabinet will resist closure if the locker door is not closed first. This serves to warn the user that the locker is not closed.

Since the cabinet depth is preferably about the same as that of the locker, the resistance to closure will be pronounced.

It is obvious that various changes may be made in the form, structure and arrangement of parts without departing from the spirit of the invention.

illustration; but instead, he desires protection falling fairly within the scope of the appended claims.

What I claim to be new and desire to protect by Letters Patent of the United States is:

1. The combination of a medicine cabinet having a door, a locker comprising a box mounted within the cabinet, a closure hingedly mounted on the box and yieldable means for urging the closure open, said box having a depth approximately equal to that of the cabinet so that said closure and yieldable means will resist closure of said door and multiple latching means for holding said closure in closed position, latch releasing means accessible from the exterior of the closure and disposed for movement in different directions to release the latching means 2. In a medicine locker comprising a box, a closure hingedly attached to one edge thereof, the improvement which includes a number of sets of latch levers and latching lugs mounted on the closure and box and adapted to engage to hold the closure closed, and separate actuating means for each set connected thereto and disposed for manual operation to disengage said levers and lugs, said actuating means being disposed for disengaging operation in different directions.

3. In a medicine locker comprising a box, a closure hingedly attached to one edge thereof, the improvement which includes a number of sets of latch levers and latching lugs mounted on the closure and box and adapted to engage to hold the closure closed, and separate actuating means for each set connected thereto and disposed for manual operation in directions parallel with the door, to disengage said levers and lugs, said actuating means being pressure responsive and being disposed for disengaging operation in such directions relative to the hinges that the resultant of the pressures exerted upon them tends to close the closure.

4. In a medicine locker comprising a box, a closure hingedly attached to one edge thereof, the improvement which includes a number of sets of latch levers and latching lugs mounted on the closure and box and adapted to engage to hold the closure closed, separate actuating means for each set connected thereto and disposed for manual operation to disengage said levers and lugs, said actuating means being pressure responsive and being disposed for disengaging operation in such directions relative to the hinges that the resultant of the pressures exerted upon them tends to close the closure and relatively stiff spring means disposed to urge said levers toward lug engaging position.

5. In a medicine locker comprising a box, a closure hingedly attached to one edge thereof, the improvement which includes a number of sets of latch levers and latching lugs mounted on the closure and box and adapted to engage to hold the closure closed, separate latch actuating means for each set connected thereto and disposed for manual operation in directions parallel with the closure, said actuating means being pressure responsive and being disposed for latch releasing operation in such directions relative to the hinges that the resultant of the pressures exerted. upon them tends to close the closure and relatively stiff spring means disposed to urge said levers toward lug engaging position, said latch releasing means being formed to afford little purchase so that the use of two hands is mandatory to effect the release of all of said levers and lugs.

6. In a medicine locker comprising a box, a closure hingedly attached thereto at one edge the improvement which includes, a single pivot means supported on the closure, a number of latch levers pivotally mounted on said pivot means and extending to different edges of said closure, latches formed on said levers, cooperating stop lugs disposed in the box for engagement by the latches, yieldable means for urging the latches and lugs into latching engagement, separate means accessible from the exterior of the locker disposed for disengaging the latches and lugs.

7. In a medicine locker comprising a box, a closure hingedly attached thereto at one edge the improvement which includes pivot means supported on the closure, a number of latch levers pivotally mounted on said pivot means and extending to different edges of said closure, latches formed on said levers, cooperating stop lugs disposed in the box for engagement by the latches, yieldable means for urging the latches and lugs into latching engagement, separate means accessible from the exterior of the locker disposed for disengaging the latches and lugs, said actuating means being movable in different directions, said directions of motion being along intersecting lines.

8. In a medicine locker comprising a box, a closure hingedly attached thereto at one edge the improvement which includes, pivot means supported on the closure, latch levers pivotally mounted on the pivot means and extending to different edges of said closure, latches formed on said levers, cooperating stop lugs disposed in the box for engagement by the latches, relatively stiff yieldable means for urging the latches and lugs into latching engagement, separate means accessible from the exterior of the locker disposed for actuating each of the latch levers to disengage the latches and lugs, said actuating means comprising tabs disposed on said levers and projecting through openings formed in the closure, said tabs having a small area to afford small purchase for the digits of the hand.

9. In a medicine locker comprising a box, a closure hingedly attached thereto at one edge the improvement which includes, a pivot pin supported on the closure, a pair of latch levers pivotally mounted on the pin and extending to different edges of said closure, latches formed on said levers, cooperating stop lugs disposed in the box for engagement by the latches, yieldable means for urging the latches and lugs into latching engagement, separate means accessible from the exterior of the locker disposed for actuating each of the latch levers to disengage the latches and lugs, said actuating means being disposed for movement in different directions, the resultant of said directions being directed away from said hinges.

10. In a medicine locker comprising a box, a closure hingedly attached thereto at one edge the improvement which includes, a pivot pin supported on the closure, a pair of latch levers pivotally mounted on the pin and extending to different edges of said closure, latches formed on said levers, cooperating stop lugs disposed in the box for engagement by the latches, yieldable means for urging the latches and lugs into latching engagement, separate means accessible from the exterior of the locker disposed for actuating the latch levers to disengage the latches and lugs, a strip fixed to said closure having ends offset from the closure and disposed above the latching levers to support them.

11. In a medicine locker comprising a box, a closure hingedly attached thereto at one edge the improvement which includes, a pivot pin supported on the closure, a pair of latch levers pivotally mounted on the pin and extending to different edges of said closure, latches formed on said levers, cooperating stop lugs disposed in the box for engagement by the latches, yieldable means for urging the latches and lugs into latching engagement, means accessible from the exterior of the locker disposed for actuating the latch levers to disengage the latches and lugs, a strip fixed to said closure having ends offset from the closure and disposed above the latching levers to support them, the central portion of said strip being offset from said closure to form a chamber, said yieldable means comprising a coiled spring disposed within the chamber, the free ends of the spring being disposed in actuating engagement with said latch levers.

12. A medicine locker comprising a box, a closure hingedly attached thereto at one edge, pivot means supported on the closure, a number of latch levers pivotally mounted on the pivot means and extending to different edges of said closure, latches formed on said levers cooperating stop lugs disposed in the box for engagement by the latches, yieldable means for urging the latches and lugs into latching engagement and means on said levers extending to a position of accessibility from the exterior of the locker disposed for actuating the latch levers to disengage the latches and lugs.

13. In a medicine locker comprising a box, a closure hingedly attached thereto at one edge the improvement which includes, a pivot pin supported on the closure, :1 pair of latch levers pivotally mounted on the pin and extending to different edges of said closure, latches formed on said levers, cooperating stop lugs disposed in the box for engagement by the latches, yieldable means for urging the latches and lugs into latching engagement, means accessible from the exterior of the locker disposed for actuating the latch levers to disengage the latches and lugs, a strip fixed to said closure having ends ofiset from the closure and disposed above the latching levers to support them, the central portion of said strip being olfset from said closure to form a chamber and said yieldable means comprising a coiled spring disposed within the chamber, the free ends of the spring being attached to said latch levers, openings formed in said closure, said actuating means comprising tabs attached to said levers, extending through said openings, said tabs and openings serving to limit the movement of said lever under the action of said spring.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,233,699 Gorrell Mar. 4, 1941 2,243,772 Peltier May 27, 1941 2,321,921 Lathrop June 15, 1943 2,326,069 Samzelius Aug. 3, 1943 

